


Think But This and All Is Mended

by kelex



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-15
Updated: 2015-09-15
Packaged: 2018-04-20 20:49:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4801796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kelex/pseuds/kelex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hannibal is in Italy, and he is alone.  Well, not alone, but certainly not there with the one he desires most.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Think But This and All Is Mended

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VictoriaAGrey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VictoriaAGrey/gifts).



> Still your fault, Ariane. You still haven't sent help. (I think I need a psychiatrist at this point.) Title is from "Midsummer Night's Dream," Act 5, scene 1.

Hannibal thinks of Will Graham often. When he is playing the harpsichord, it is Will and not Bedelia that he sees sitting on the narrow bench. They sit close, shoulder to shoulder and hip to hip, because Will enjoys the way Hannibal's fingers dance over the keys. It is for Will that he plays, as if oceans and continents can be crossed by music.

When he lectures to the _Studiolo_ , there's an ache he doesn't recognize as sadness because Will is not there to hear the words and sentences that are ultimately meaningless in his loneliness. 

When he puts pencil to paper, it is always Will's face that looks out of the drawings with the acceptance and love he's yearned to find there. Abigail is there, too, a father and daughter always locked in the paternal embrace they could never share in life.

When he closes his eyes, he is surprised to find Will there, expanding his room of Hannibal's memory palace with every passing moment. 

But he doesn't require the memory palace, not really. Will is omnipresent, lacking only physicality to bring him fully into Hannibal's life. He both hopes for and dreads that final step; he will have to either embrace Will fully or destroy him utterly. And Hannibal is ready for neither.

Yet he cannot deny that he hungers for Will. In every way, he can admit that. A physical hunger, a mental and emotional hunger, and both were voracious. If he were not careful, he could easily devour Will, leaving nothing. 

In some ways, he already had.

He wondered about Will's recovery; he debated sending flowers. He sent them instead to Jack Crawford. A part of him regretted losing Jack's friendship; another wished Will had held Jack down while Hannibal slashed Crawford deeply. He'd imagined just that more than once; he knew Will must have, too.

Because the chrysalis was almost, _almost_ ready to open. He'd gotten a peek; Randall had been a gift, and Will had accepted with great relish. But the cocoon was on the knife's edge of bursting, and Hannibal was so very eager to see the beautiful creature inside spread its wings and take flight.

Will was all he'd ever wanted; a friend, a person like himself who could appreciate the secret parts he never shared.

And sometimes he dreamed of just that; Will and himself, wet and slick with the blood of a shared kill, with eyes that looked out over the carnage and reflected only delight. With lips that whispered, "I understand now."

Those words would be his salvation, or his undoing.

~~End

**Author's Note:**

> Full title quote for those curious: 
> 
> If we shadows have offended,  
> Think but this, and all is mended,  
> That you have but slumbered here  
> While these visions did appear.  
> And this weak and idle theme,  
> No more yielding but a dream,  
> Gentles, do not reprehend:  
> If you pardon, we will mend:  
> And, as I am an honest Puck,  
> If we have unearned luck  
> Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,  
> We will make amends ere long;  
> Else the Puck a liar call;  
> So, good night unto you all.  
> Give me your hands, if we be friends,  
> And Robin shall restore amends.


End file.
